S.J. Battered: Delta Levees Feel the Strain of Heavy Rainfall
By Yasmin Assemi, The Record, Stockton, Calif., The Record, Stockton, Calif.
Jan. 2–RIO VISTA – Storms damaged levee systems throughout Northern California on Sunday, threatening the state’s water quality and leaving residents in much of the Delta at risk for flooding.
In Stockton, crews have worked since Saturday to prevent Elmwood Tract from flooding. California Conservation Corps crews and other emergency workers used sandbags to repair levee leaks caused by beaver dens and rodent holes, said Bill Burkhard, an engineer with the California Department of Water Resources. A levee is an artificial embankment that keeps a waterway from overflowing.
“Our county actually came through (the storms) pretty good,” said Ron Baldwin, director of San Joaquin County’s Office of Emergency Services. “No major problems that we’re aware of.”
Residents of state-owned Twitchell Island, in the northern part of the Delta near Rio Vista in Sacramento County, weren’t so lucky. Crews worked Sunday to repair a hole in the levee that otherwise could have broken the embankment and flooded homes.
“It’s a long, strange day,” Jim Eckman, an engineer with the state Department of Water Resources, said Sunday night as a farmer evacuated his flock of sheep from Twitchell Island. “Twitchell was under threat. It really was.”
Twitchell’s soil level is 15 feet or more below sea level in places and still sinking, making a flood more likely every year. Flood fights saved the island in 1995, ’97′and ’98.
Twitchell Island resident Cathryn Haley worried more about irreplaceable family photographs than her safety Sunday.
“They gave us no warning,” Haley said as she struggled to unlock her trailer door under a black sky and battering winds.
San Joaquin County residents likely wouldn’t suffer if Twitchell Island’s levee were to collapse, Baldwin said. But if any Delta island were to flood, it could endanger neighboring islands and pollute the state’s drinking water with saltwater, Eckman said.
Twitchell Island’s levee was still intact late Sunday.
“It was a serious situation,” Eckman said. “But (the levee) didn’t fail, thank goodness.”
Contact reporter Yasmin Assemi at (209) 546-8272 or yassemi@recordnet.com
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